


To Pull The Words From an Angel

by brodylover



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Blood, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Major Character Injury, Mortal Cas, Torture, sigil
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-05-03
Updated: 2013-06-07
Packaged: 2017-12-10 07:43:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 4,853
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/783537
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brodylover/pseuds/brodylover
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean gets dragged into a group of hunters all set to torture an angel into giving them everything they need to know in order to get to heaven. They aren't acting right though, Dean can tell, and the sigils making the angel mortal, well there's no way they should know all of that.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Tuesday 10:37am

Dean stared at his phone. He didn’t recognize the phone number. That was fine, a lot of hunters changed their numbers on a whim, he shouldn’t have been surprised. He had hoped it would be Cas though. It had been five days since he’d last seen him, not as long as usual but still, he was worried. Cas hadn’t been in good shape and he said he would be right back. He had just stepped out for some air, had actually told Dean he was going on a walk instead of just vanishing. That was weird too.  
He answered the phone.  
“Dean!” came the voice. Yeah, he recognized it, but he didn’t know how. It could have belonged to anyone.  
“Can I help you?” he asked, deciding to keep it professional, hiding the quake in his voice.  
“Yeah, we caught something, some other hunters and I. We’re trying to interrogate it, learn about it. It’s not giving us anything, mind giving us a hand?”  
“You mean torture…” Dean rubbed his forehead between thumb and pointer finger. He did not want to be discussing this.  
“Well…”  
“No.”  
“Come on Dean. You’re the best at this! You’re the guy who went to Hell, learned the best techniques.”  
That made Dean pause and his mind was racing. How did they know that? How did anyone know that? He had only ever told Sam, Bobby, and, well, Cas knew, but it wasn’t like they were telling anyone. Most hunters would have freaked out and he would be the one being “interrogated”.  
“Who is this?” he growled.  
“Hey no offense man!” the hunter chuckled, “This is Craig, you know, from Miami? We hunted that mermaid together.”  
“Right, right.” Dean thought back. Yeah she’d been hiding under the docks, dragging people down into the water and eating them. Craig hadn’t been able to figure it out because there was no pattern. He had been a cop before he was a hunter and he worked by the book. He wouldn’t torture anything. “Who told you about Hell?”  
“Oh, this guy! He was the one who led us to the job! I don’t know his name, he was really hush hush, wouldn’t give it to anyone. But well, we couldn’t get any info out of this guy, so he told us to call you.”  
“You shouldn’t take candy from strangers.” Dean rolled his eyes, “You know that.”  
“Oh but this isn’t candy Dean, my boy.” Craig was about to cackle, it was in his voice. No one should sound that happy about torture. It put Dean on edge. “This is the whole piñata. This guy, he led us to an angel!”


	2. Wednesday 1:14 am

There was no reason Dean shouldn’t have been pulled over for speeding, absolutely none. He was going 40 above the speed limit at his slowest. He had to get there though, had to get there as fast as possible and, while Kansas was close to the center of the country, his goal was Maine, which was one of the top corners! He couldn’t get there fast enough.  
He had left a note for Sam, hadn’t bothered trying to wake him up. He couldn’t do anything anyway, not in his state, even though he was acting like he was better. He was still sleeping for days at a time.   
The cabin looked abandoned and it probably had been up until the angel had been found. There was a guard, sitting on a large boulder, rifle in his hands and he was glaring like he just wanted someone to try and break in, like he wanted to shoot someone. He smiled when he saw the Impala though and waved Dean in.   
There were a lot of cars parked outside of the cabin, littering where there should have been plants growing. Dean parked along with them, made sure to lock every door and make sure no one could jimmy the locks. Something about this, other than how they were torturing an angel, was off. Everyone seemed just a bit too eager.   
The cabin itself was a mess. There were bottle everywhere, everclear, whiskey, beer, nothing expensive, just high in alcohol content. There were take out wrappers and pizza boxes on every surface that wasn’t covered in empty bottles of booze. How long had they been at this? The room smelled like mold and grease and sweat and urine. And blood. Blood was lacing every scent in the entire place.   
The second room had four hunters in it, all asleep, one on a ruined old couch, two on the floor, the last in a busted armchair. They were bundled up with sleeping bags and blankets. Dean couldn’t imagine sleeping in a place like this, not with the stink, but then again he hadn’t been the one using all of those bottles.  
Then there was a scream, muffled by distance and the sound of laughter. The hunters didn’t even change position, didn’t notice, but Dean was running, rushing in the direction of the sound. The scream had been rough and grating, the voice hoarse. The whole time he’d been driving he’d hoped, prayed that that wouldn’t be the scream he’d hear.   
He pushed open a door and half fell down the stairs, racing too fast down them into the basement. There were another five hunters down there, all standing around one squirming figure. Dean couldn’t see it, not through all of them, all he could see were the thin, pale arms and the blood and the broken fingers, scrabbling in pain around chains, handcuffs, which were rubbing wrists raw.  
Dean ignored the hunters, pushed through them, pushed right up to the front.   
There were sigils carved into his arms, his chest, painted in his blood on the wall behind him, like a halo. His face was a mess of swelling and bruising, one eye gashed almost completely out. Half, if not more, of his teeth had been beaten out and his nose was almost completely flat from breaking. There were nails and wood and glass pressed into sensitive skin. There were hooks in thighs and calves, rigged up to a pulley system, so his legs could be pulled up and torn apart more easily. His back had been flayed open, the skin stretched into a mockery of wings behind him.   
Cas was breathing hard, looking like he was about to pass out and these hunters, they were laughing at him. Laughing like this was the funniest joke in the world. Dean’s eyes were filling with tears, tears he didn’t want to fall. It seemed that the hunters didn’t know that Cas and Dean knew one another and he was sure that something terrible would happen if they found out. He bit his lip and pretended that this didn’t affect him, that this wasn’t making the bile rise in his throat.   
Cas looked up at him with his remaining eye and Dean wished that he hadn’t. He wanted Cas to see that he was there, that safety was coming, that Dean would rescue him, but at the same time, he was terrified that Cas would think he was with the other hunters, that he was there to hurt him as well. And, what if Cas said something? Let them in on their connection?   
His head fell forward as unconsciousness consumed him.   
Dean did his best not to rush forward and comfort him. Another hunter, smaller than the rest, with bright red hair and less experience than the others, took his place, hurrying over to Cas and looking over all of the damage. Some of it was old and already stitched up, but this guy, he was cleaning the new wounds, bandaging and setting the broken fingers. He even had an IV set up, blood and nutrients pressing into Cas’s veins.   
They didn’t want him dead. They wanted him hurting.   
That was even worse.  
Dean almost socked Craig right in the face when he put his hand on his shoulder, sneaking up to his side. He would have been handsome if it weren’t for the curved scar twisting his lip and blinding one eye, an injury he had received on an early hunt. Dean hadn’t seen him in a long time but he was changed. Here, he was animal, twisted, the scar fit and became here.  
“You finally joined us!” he cackled. “What do you think?”  
Dean couldn’t find his words at first. His throat was dry, his saliva gone. He tried but nothing came out. He pushed the words through on the second try, “What’s the point of this?” he needed to know. Cas hadn’t done anything deserve this, not a thing, “Why are you torturing that thing? It’s an angel, you said so yourself.”  
Craig walked around him, the hand sliding from one shoulder to the other along his back. His skin was like electricity, not right. Nothing here was right.   
“It’s going to tell us how to get to Heaven.” Craig explained, “You’re going to make it tell us how to get there. We’re going to see our families again, Dean. You can come with us, see your dear old Mommy again.”  
“You don’t want to do this.” Dean couldn’t look at Craig, not with that predatory twitch at his lips, not that manic light to his pale gray eyes. He couldn’t look at Cas either, not without breaking. He kept his eyes on the ground.   
“I don’t?” Craig asked. “Dean. Dean Dean Dean Dean DEAN! You have no idea how much I want to do this. How much we all want to do this. Angels are proof! Don’t you see? They are proof that Heaven exists, that the stories are true! And this one here, he’s going to march us right up to the gates.”  
Dean finally looked up, seeing the blood dripping from Cas’s mangled face. He closed his eyes and swallowed, even though there was no saliva too swallow.   
“Looks like a man to me. What makes you think he’s an angel?”  
“The man told us.”  
Dean glared down at Craig, pulling himself up to his full height, “You keep mentioning this man. Why would you trust a man who won’t even give you a name?”  
“Because.” said another hunter, one sitting up on a table covered in tools and blades, his jeans getting stained in angelic blood, “He was right. When we first cut him, he bled light. That was the only way we could get him down, was with a special blade the man gave us. We strapped him down and got to work after that, driving him all of the way up here from Kansas.”  
That walk. Cas had only been gone for five minutes when they had found him. Dean cursed himself. He should never have let Cas go out.   
“And the sigils? Did they come from this man as well?”  
“He gave us a whole book of them.” The new hunter looked like a snake to Dean.   
Craig finally took his hand off of him and headed towards the stairs, “Come now, follow me. We’ll catch up away from the stench of blood.”


	3. Wednesday 3:27am

Cas was starting to come around when Dean finally had a moment to leave the other hunters. They were drinking, partying, nothing that they should have been doing when they torturing someone. They should have been disturbed by what they were doing, should have been riding through guilt and pain, vomiting in the bathrooms, the sinks. They should not have been so jovial.   
But when Dean asked if he could go down there, check out their informant, Craig gave him permission. It didn’t look like he really cared, not really. Dean didn’t have to pick any locks or sneak around. He just opened the door and went back down the stairs.  
Cas was healing, but it wasn’t with the lightning speed he usually carried. Here it was as slow as sand, sifting through an hourglass. The light and shallow wounds were starting to meld back together, the blood half washed away from the young hunters wash cloth.  
He was still there, still watching over Cas, checking his vitals and sutures.   
Dean walked up behind him, looking over his work, “You did all this fast.” He muttered.  
The boy jumped, spinning around, “Sorry! Sorry, I know I’m only supposed to be keeping him alive, none of this extra stuff but, I can’t… I can’t just leave it.”  
“You’re not supposed to?” Dean squinted trying to read this guy. He was just as off as the rest.  
“They don’t want me to do anything at all, really.” The young hunter slumped, “They just want me to leave him alone. If I had done that he would have been dead on the first day.”  
“What’s your name?” Dean asked, but he had moved past the hunter, gone on to Cas, one hand on either cheek, holding his head up. He could feel Cas’s heartbeat racing through him, trying to pump enough blood through the veins. His breathing was shallow and pained. His one eye was fluttering open and closed. He was trying to wake up.   
“Dick.” The boy replied.  
“Well, Dick. Tell me what’s going on. They tried to fill me in upstairs but with all of the drinking and partying I didn’t understand a word of it.”  
“You shouldn’t!” Dick reached out, grabbing Dean’s wrist, stopping him from wiping some blood away from Cas’s gashed out eye. “Don’t show that you care, okay? There are cameras. He’s being watched at all times.”  
“Do the cameras have sound?”  
“No.”  
“Good. Tell me.” Dean took his hands away from Cas, although all he wanted to do was keep touching him, keep giving him some comfort.  
“This man came up to Craig, told him about the angel. Gave him specific instructions on how to catch it. Craig called us, his ‘team’, and we went on from there. Craig says he wants to find out about Heaven, but I don’t think that’s true. It seems like he just wants to hurt the poor bastard.”  
“Are you saying he’s not acting right?”   
“None of us are. Dean. When I said I can’t just leave it, what I mean is that I physically cannot stop healing him. The others, they cannot stop hurting or drinking, or or sleeping, or fornicating. It’s like someone has flipped a switch in our heads. All inhibitions are out the window.”  
“That’s not my problem.” Dean admitted, looking Cas over again. “I have to get him out of here.”  
“You only say that because you’re not infected.”  
Dean spun around staring at Dick. Infected? “What do you mean, infected?”  
“We can’t stop, Dean. We do what we want, when we want, regardless of moral compass. It’s been like this since we entered the cabin, like it’s in the air. We cannot stop ourselves. I don’t know how you’re not infected, but you are. You’re the only one that can stop this.”  
“Why should I care?” Dean growled, “After everything that your ‘team’ has done, why should I do anything for you? Why shouldn’t I just let you drink yourselves to death for this?”  
“Dean.”  
“Just a second Cas.” Dean growled, his attention still on Dick.  
“Dean…” Cas’s voice was thin, weak, almost impossible to hear.  
Dean finally turned, finally looked into Cas’s single eye, liquids dripping down his cheek from it. Dean wiped it away, lip quivering. Cas looked like he was hurting, even after the initial pain was done and he’d been taken care of. It wasn’t enough though, there was still pain there. A pain that Dean wanted to wipe away.   
He took Cas’s head in hand though instead, breathed with him, unsure of what to say.   
“I’m here Cas.” He finally picked, “I’m here. I’m going to let you out.”  
“Save.” Cas mumbled, head lolling.  
“Yeah, buddy. I’m going to save you.”  
Cas tried to shake his head tried to correct him, “No. Save… save them. Demon.”  
“Demon? They’re not possessed, Cas. They’re infected. Demons don’t do infections and this isn’t Croatoan. Oh God, Cas, I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have let you go alone. I should have kept you safe. I’ll get you out of here, I promise. Just, hold on, okay? If they know, if they know we know each other, then there’s nothing. Nothing I can do.”  
“Nothing you. Can do. Now.” Cas rested against Dean’s touch. He was far too cold, “Green Eyed. Demon.”  
Cas fell back into the warmth of unconsciousness. Now they had connected again, Dean had to hope that Cas wouldn’t give them away.  
The door swung open and Craig rushed down, quickly followed by that snake-like hunter.   
“He spoke to you!” Craig grinned, “He spoke! What did he say?”


	4. Wednesday 8:57am

Fire seemed to be the medium of the day and Dean could hardly watch as Cas struggled and fought, trying to stay away from the red to white hot metals that were being dragged and pressed through his skin. He tried to close his ears to the angel’s screams. He tried to think of something, anything else, anything other than how this shouldn’t be happening, how he should have saved Cas by now.   
Cas would look up at him, pleading, but never give him away. He made sure to give the same expression to the other hunters as well, keep it even, keep Dean safe. That’s all he ever tried to do, keep Dean safe.   
And Dean couldn’t keep him safe in turn.   
A hunter, dark skinned and with bloodshot eyes, pressed against Dean, placed a weapon in his hand. He led Dean to the angel, pushed him to do what they had all heard he was so good at.   
Dean just stared at the tool in his hand, an iron meat hook, curvature red with heat, leather wrapping where his hand was. He looked up at Cas, chest heaving before him. His head was hanging low, his eyes lolling, attention destroyed. His skin was still steaming in places, each burn still burning, blistering and splitting, blood and puss dripping down his skin.   
He ran a hand along Cas’s cheek and the angel jumped at the contact. He turned though, forced the fog to clear from his eyes and stared up at Dean, head resting against his palm. He was in agony and he was terrified and his eyes were racing over Dean’s face, down to the weapon in his hand and then he was whimpering.   
30 years. It had taken Dean 30 years to break in Hell. This was Earth, the land of the living, and Cas thought he had already broken, that he would use the tools given to him.   
Dean moved his thumb, wiped away the puss and the tears staining Cas’s broken face.   
“This isn’t an angel.” He muttered before turning to the other hunters, “Does this feel right? To any of you? This man bleeds and hurts like a human being! Angels, they have wings, don’t they? Have power? You say that this is an angel but I don’t see it.”  
“We told you.” The snakey hunter grinned, “The man told us. He gave us the sigils to bind him. Otherwise he would be free.”  
“This man, you don’t even know who he was!”  
“It doesn’t matter. We’re going to learn from this thing regardless.”  
“And the sigils. Why would you trust them?”  
“Because they work!”  
Craig grabbed Dean by the shoulder, turned him from the angel who was slowly gaining relief. “Dean.” He reprimanded, “What are you doing? This is why you’re here! You can get the angel to talk, get it to tell us everything. That man, he told us about you, told us about Hell. Why are you fighting us?”  
“This is wrong, Craig, don’t you see that?”   
But no, he didn’t.   
“This man.” Dean’s eyes flickered back over to Cas, “He wear a suit? Had an English accent?”  
Craig nodded, looking at him like he were insane.   
Dean groaned, eyes rolling and his whole body shifted with irritation. “You know who that was? That was the king of Hell!”  
All of the hunters were staring at him then.   
“That was Crowley. He used to be a crossroads demon but he got a promotion or something when Lucifer went back into the cage, went back to Hell. Now he runs the show! Of course. This whole thing makes so much more sense. You know what he’s going to do? He’s going to come to collect his angel and he’s going to kill every single one of you.”  
Craig couldn’t keep staring. His eyes just went to his shoes. Hell, all of the hunters looked like puppies that had just been kicked.   
“Well then.” Hissed the snakey hunter, “I guess we’d better learn what we can before he shows up.”


	5. Wednesday 11:09am

He was hurting. Cas was being torn and frayed and Dean could hear him screaming, could hear them as they cut and scraped and burned, through the floorboards. He was upstairs, being interrogated himself, but without the pain and torture that Cas was being put through.   
He looked through the "ancient book" Crowley had inked and given them, the pages still smelling ripe from the printer. He recognized some of the sigils, had drawn some of them himself, and was honest with the bloodthirsty hunters about what he saw. He told them everything about Crowley and they seemed to believe him. He only excluded one detail, that he knew who Cas was.   
Then the angel's screams faded and everything was still for a moment. Then there was more screaming, but it was of a panic, the screams of hunters calling Craig and the others down. They rushed so fast that a chair fell over and Dean was right with them.   
Cas's skin was pale, a steady stream of red dripping from his lips. He hung limp, his chest not even moving. The kid, Dick, was checking his pulse, eyes wide and frantic.   
Dean pushed to the front, got to the angel's side, found him not breathing and his heart not even beating. He cursed but slid behind him, trying not to think as he pressed his chest against Cas's flayed open back, the torn skin revealing muscle and the tips of vertebrae. His skin was surprisingly cold, even though his heart couldn't have stopped beating for long.   
He was shaking as he pushed, hands rhythmic, pumping in hard presses, forcing Cas's heart to pump by his ministrations. He found himself screaming out orders as he pressed, causing what was left of Cas's blood to ooze through exhausted veins. Dick seemed to understand and he got to work, setting up a new blood pack in his I.V. before cleaning and patching up open wounds.   
It was too long before Cas breathed, a large gasp and if he had been properly human he would have had some terrible brain damage. Dean stopped pumping his blood for him, but held on anyway, keeping Cas grounded, feeling as his heart tried to catch up.   
"Out!" he growled and the hunters were staring at him once more, "Dick, you stay here, but the rest of you, out. Now."  
The hunters were silent as they obeyed.   
Dean's chest was soaked, his shirt sticking to him with so much blood and puss as he peeled away from Cas. He was delicate as he unhooked the torn skin, letting it hang. He ran his fingers through Cas's hair, trying to be comforting. He remembered the cameras but they didn't matte. Cas needed some comfort and he was the only one who could give it here.   
"Stitch this up?" he asked, moving to Cas's front and pressing a finger to his lips, the rest of his hand caressing Cas's swollen cheek. Cas leaned into the touch and Dean knew that he was succeeding in comforting him.   
Cas stiffened though as Dick appeared behind him, sewing the wings of flesh back in place. He kept his eyes on Dean, squirming and wheezing in the pain of it, but Dean was strong, keeping his hands still, one on his cheek the other above his birdlike heart, racing and fluttering and threatening to break once more.   
"It's okay." Dean promised. "It's fine. He's fixing you up."  
"Dean." Cas whimpered, closing his eyes and gasping and shaking.   
"I'm so sorry."   
"You promised." Cas sighed as Dick finished up, "You said you. would save me. that you would. get me. out of here."  
"I will Cas." Dean rubbed the tears that were sliding down Cas's torn cheek. "I will. I don't know how I can though. They're watching. They're always watching."  
"Please." Cas whimpered and Dean had to bite the inside of his cheek, had to stop himself right there because all he wanted to do was pull out those hooks, tear away the sigils, pick the locks, and take Cas away, take him home and hold him. He wanted to hold hims so tight that Cas understood that he would never let him go, wanted to wipe away each molecule of pain. He wanted to hold and kiss and suck away any ill and comfort and love, but he couldn't, not just because there was no way he could get Cas out of there, but because that wasn't right. Those were things you would do with a lover, not a friend, and definitely not an Angel of the Lord.   
"What can I do?" Dean begged, for he needed Cas out of there just about as much as Cas did.   
"The green eyed demon." Cas hissed. "You have to. Stop it."  
"What are you talking about?" for he knew the green eyed demon was envy and he had killed or exorcised that particular demon.   
"One of the hunters." Cas coughed and Dean could feel the tremors of it in his hand over Cas's heart before there was more blood on Cas's lips. "Possessed. You have to. free the hunters. Infected."  
"How?"  
But Cas only smiled a tiny little smile. Dean was a hunter. He knew what to do.


	6. Wednesday 4:19pm

Dean waited. They were coming, he could hear them on the stairs. Cas's head was still lolling, he still could hardly do anything to stay conscious, so exhausted and starved from the torture.   
There were light steps on the stairs and Dean turned from the angel, one hand always on him, to watch as the hunters came down. They stared from him to the angel, Craig in the lead, as per always, and they spread out into the room. Dean was smirking and none of them seemed to like that.   
"What did you find out?" Craig asked.   
"Everything." Dean crossed his arms. The hunters looked antsy, walking around, moving all over the place.   
He told them everything about Heaven, how destroyed it was, how no one in their right mind would want to go there. He kept out the fact that it was Cas who had killed so many angels up there, had started the civil war, had caused so much damage.   
"And you didn't hurt him." Craig walked up to Cas, who inched and winced away from Craig. Dean wanted to grab him and pull him away from his angel.   
"I didn't have to." Dean walked closer, pushed himself up to Craig's side, "There's this thing called Good Cop Bad Cop, you may have heard of it?"  
Craig drew even closer to Cas and he whined at the close proximity, "Yet you haven't figured out how to get in."  
"Well, who would want to?" Dean looked over the crowd and, while the hunters were all agitated, there was one that wasn't walking about. The snake like hunter was still standing at the front of the stairs, trying not to look suspicious. Trying a bit too hard.   
Dean walked towards him a bit, checking him out. "What was your name?" he asked, "I hadn't caught it."  
The hunter crossed his arms. "Chris."  
"Oh? What was that? Cristo?"   
The hunter's eyes turned green suddenly, the white fading away into the all encompassing forest.   
Dean chuckled as all of the other hunters turned, joined him in gawking at the demon.   
"I painted the devil's trap while you were all upstairs." Dean pointed up at the ceiling, where a crude trap had been drawn in chalk, "I know I know, you all have a bunch of cameras and the angel is being watched at all times, but while you were up there with your debauchery, I sent someone up to do a bit of his own."  
He had felt bad about sending Dick up there alone, to distract the security. It had been Dick who suggested it though, telling Dean that the guy up there stayed there instead of messing around with the girls that would be coming soon enough to satisfy the non torturous needs of the hunters was because he had an entirely different hunger. A hunger Dick was willing to feed if it would help Dean out.   
"So, an actual demon, right here. Is anyone surprised? At all?" Dean shrugged.   
The hunters all circled the newcome demon.   
Dean couldn't help but smile at that.


End file.
